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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144983">Five Headaches</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tequila_Mockingbird/pseuds/Tequila_Mockingbird'>Tequila_Mockingbird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Times, Canon Compliant, Conversations, F/M, Post-Book 4: A Conspiracy of Kings (Queen's Thief), ish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:14:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tequila_Mockingbird/pseuds/Tequila_Mockingbird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five conversations with the Thief of Eddis (and their concomitant headaches), plus one more.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Attolia | Irene/Eugenides</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five Headaches</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightalp/gifts">Nightalp</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p>
  <span>The Queen of Attolia is reading a harvest report when she hears her husband enter the room. Or, to be accurate, when she hears her husband quietly alert her to his presence. “I am going to pass a law that forbids idiots from coming within thirty paces of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will banish the entire Court, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They make you frown, right here,” he presses a finger, as light as a falling leaf, to her temple, and then pulls it back. “The way you do when you are beginning a headache.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trying to govern a kingdom while bawling everything from across the room is only likely to worsen the headaches.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmmm.” His fingers dance back, along her hair and down below her ear. “Then I shall pass a law forbidding them to be imbeciles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sure that you can pass it, but I have the gravest doubts of your ability to enforce it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am the annux. I can do anything I want.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since they are, for the most part, private, Irene allows herself the barest hint of a smile. “Then do not waste your time worrying about idiots.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, indeed, my time is far better spent wasting yours.” He tugs the harvest report out from her fingers and pushes it further up her desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we are going to make a decision tomorrow about the military levy for next year, I will need to know how the harvest fared toward the northeastern border.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The harvest was excellent--superlative.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She twists, slightly, to catch his eyes. “Liar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. But this is what your secretaries are for--reading reports to spare you headaches.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is from my secretary, who has read quite a large number of reports and condensed them into only two, neither more than four pages, which I had hoped I could finish before my King returned.” She picks up the papers again, and firmly ignores the hand that is now ghosting along her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs, and comes around to slouch on the chair kept pushed up against her desk for this very purpose. “The southern report?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pushes it over to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Queen of Attolia’s bedchamber is quiet for several minutes, except for the gentle susurration of turning pages. And then, after that, it is (briefly) louder, then quiet again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shortly after that, the Thief of Eddis slips out the window and makes his way over the roof in the dark of the moonless night. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>II.</p><p>
  <span>Relius knows from the moment he steps into his rooms that nothing is going to fix this headache. Not the powders that Petrus provides to be dissolved in wine, not the wine itself, even the best vintages, not even the firm grip of Teleus’s hands at the back of his neck where the muscles bunch and hold tension. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, this headache is sitting in an impressively slovenly fashion on a somewhat uneven stool in the corner of his apartments, and if Relius is any judge, it isn’t going to go anywhere for quite some time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My King. You know, one of these days you are going to fall off of a stool and onto your royal backside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When my God drops me, Relius, and not a minute before. And so, I am sure, any minute now.” He has the audacity to grin, which honestly just makes the headache worse. At least when he’s moping, he… no. Actually, Eugenides Attolis is equally inconvenient in all moods. But Relius always feels the greatest need to punch his smug little face when he thinks he’s been clever. The fact that he had been busy in his office when Costis landed one on him was, he really thinks, the worst of the whole affair. He’s made Teleus describe it dozens of times, and neither of them have tired of it yet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eugenides squints at him. “You’re thinking of the time that Costis punched me in the face, Relius.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Constantly, my King.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m hurt.” His voice remains smooth and even. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What you are, Your Majesty, is wasting my time. What is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The trade caravans through the eastern border, from Magyar--we levy only a tax on the goods, and not the border crossing itself. And we don’t inspect the wagons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Those caravans are run almost entirely by the Baron Philokrates, who has served the queen loyally. And no, you may not seize one at the border.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The King of Attolia lets out an audible whine and flops over completely, dangling his head and arms off the stool almost onto the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can do anything I want, Relius.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, Your Majesty. However, unless you want to subsequently begin a trade war with Magyar, you cannot impose a tax on the border caravans in excess of what was agreed to at the last Conference of Hur, and unless you want to begin a trade war with Magyar </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> alienate nearly a quarter of your barons, you cannot seize imported goods without cause.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The king waved his hand, as if to imply that he might, in fact, wish to begin a trade war with Magyar. “Baron Philokrates is our largest importer of wines, is he not, Relius?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, my King--he controls nearly a third of the wine trade on our northeastern borders--and he’s trying to marry his youngest off to the daughter of the wine merchant family that controls another quarter of it.” Relius paused. He’d learned the hard way not to try to leapfrog over his monarch and predict where his mind would go--it was, inevitably, a waste of his time. “Baron Philokrates has been very loyal to the Queen, Your Majesty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmm. And how does smuggling rank, Relius, so far as cause for seizure of goods at the border?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Relius has been, at various times in his life, a very wise man and a very foolish one. But he hopes he is no longer so foolish as to underestimate the Thief of Eddis. “If your Majesty believes that he should be investigated…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, Relius, no need to worry. I am entirely able to handle this sort of thing for myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is precisely what gives Relius headaches.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>III.</p><p>
  <span>“My lord.” She bows her head to indicate the full curtsey she can’t give him, since her arms are full of discarded linens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pouts at her like a disgruntled schoolboy--and she has to remind herself, every now and then, even knowing him for what he is, about what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because they’ve all started to look very young to her, these days. Even her Queen was barely more than a girlchild out of the nursery, for all her command and authority, and so Phresine was always resisting (and sometimes not very effectively) the urge to pat the King of Attolia on the head and offer him a nice bit of dried fruit if he could be good until supper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just as well, really--he most definitely could </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>be good until supper, and he was the type, sure enough, who would have sulked from here to the edge of the Middle Sea about it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Phresine, why are all the sheets in Attolia scratchy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because all of our best linen is imported from Eddis, my lord, and they had a rather busy year.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That sets him back to smiling, smug with it. “They do, don’t they? The very best wools. Attolian sheep simply cannot compare.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure, my lord.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you humoring me, Phresine? I won’t be humored.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not, my lord.” She keeps her smile tucked into the corners of her lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Phresine, do you happen to recall when the Baron Philokrates started importing wines into Attolia?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure I couldn’t say, my lord… back in the time of her Majesty’s father, I think--or perhaps just at the start of her reign. Not long after, I know, because I recall that there was some difficulty about whether his wine would be served in the palace for the reception to commemorate the ascension of Baron Cletus, and that came only just after the queen took the throne. But the family’s always been involved in trade over to Magyar, it just wasn’t wine, before that--good goldwork comes out of there, and gems. That’s where the ring came from, the ring that poisoned the Council at Khios, so the story goes, that they make jewels specially for assassins but never trade them outside their borders.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He winks at her, and she loses the fight against her smile. She’s sure she cannot teach the Thief of Eddis anything he does not know about the famed gemstones or assassins of Magyar. “Teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, am I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not at all, not at all. I am grateful for your wisdom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I think they always traded in consumable goods, even before it was wine. And I doubt if you’ve ever had the wines imported from Magyar, your Majesty, because unless I am quite mistaken </span>
  <em>
    <span>your</span>
  </em>
  <span> wines come straight from the island of Ismarios.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> is a royal secret.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her arms are full, and so Phresine cannot pat the King of Attolia and Annux of Kings on the shoulder. “Of course, my lord.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How much would it cost to replace all of the sheets in the palace with good Eddisian wools?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“More than your Majesty can spend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The frown is back. “I can do anything I want, Phresine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can give yourself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer a headache, is what you can do. And still the Eddisian weavers won’t have enough to sell, not for several more years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if I replaced only my own sheets, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That would work if you slept only in your own bed, my lord.” She darts a pointed glance down to the sheets from her Majesty’s bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That gets a huff of laughter. “I could have you hanged, you know, Phresine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could, my lord, but you wouldn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanders off with a slight huff, and she shakes her head, smile firmly back on her lips. The laundresses will be waiting.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>IV.</p><p>
  <span>The king pulls Costis aside in the middle of their walk through the Palace, into one of the many oddly-shaped little antechambers he knows, and fixes him with a bright, sharp look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Costis. I have an errand for you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can feel the headache starting already, just behind his eye. “Of course, my King.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, now, Costis, that’s hurtful. It could be a very innocent little errand. It might even be educational!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Costis! Is this what has become of the Royal Guard? No longer striving to improve their skills? And you so recently promoted.” His eyes are bright and he moves, just a little, with impatient energy. Whatever this is, it’s important. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Costis can feel his heart pick up. Things have been quiet, recently, and Costis had thought, back when he was cursing the fates that led him into the path of the king, that he would appreciate some quiet, the calm routines of the Guard in a time of peace. It turns out now that he’s lost his taste for it, or gained the taste for something else, perhaps. “What is it, my King?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sending you to a wineshop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A wineshop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So disappointed, Costis! Is it not the sole ambition of my Guard to waste their pay in wineshops? But you shouldn’t be too cast down, for this is no ordinary wineshop. Oh no! It carries only the most exquisite imported wines, Baron Philokrates’s very best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Costis nods, slowly. He’s heard that name, recently--the Wine Baron--and he knows that the stuff’s supposed to be good. Gods know it would be hard to be worse than the swill they serve in the barracks. “And I’m to…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, just go for a drink. Guards love to go for a drink--and if a friendly stranger happens to sit down at your table, and then to offer you a gift…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Costis nods, slowly. He cannot reasonably expect to be told more than this. He is a tool to be used by his king and his queen, and often his Majesty seems to move him around like a chess piece on the board, all the more valuable for his own ignorance. The Thief of Eddis does not need to confide in an Attolian lieutenant. “Should I bring it up to the palace?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, leave it in your rooms.” That it will be no great difficulty for the king to retrieve anything he likes from Costis’s barrack room goes without saying. “By the bed, let’s say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, keeping his face carefully blank. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Costis, don’t look so dour. It’s just a little surprise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t expect--that is, your Majesty could not possibly be expected to confide--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hush. I can do anything I want, even if that means telling all my secrets to the Lieutenants in my guard.” The king glances over at Cosis, mouth beginning to stretch in a grin. “Come here, quietly--I’ll just whisper it.” He leans over, mouth by Costis’s ear, and whispers five words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Costis’s eyes widen, slightly, and then he nods. “I won’t fail you, my King.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The king claps him on the shoulder. “Indeed not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not sure what he expects, when he makes it down to the wineshop, but it looks, essentially, like any other wineshop. It’s neither packed full nor empty, and the prices are roughly what Costis has come to expect. He buys his wine and sits down to drink it. It is, honestly, also essentially like any other wine. Lighter bodied, perhaps, but what they serve in the barracks is barely more than vinegar and his father’s taste in wine had run heavy, so he cannot claim to be any kind of expert. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, of course, the king made it clear that the wine was not, in fact, the point. Costis lingers over his first cup for a short time and then is, in fact, accosted by a friendly stranger who asks to be told about the city and buys him several more cups as thanks. Thus far, everything has proceeded as the king predicted, without some of the more unfortunate surprises that Costis had braced for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he is surprised by the little cloth-wrapped package that is discreetly slipped into his hand--he hadn’t, quite, expected the king’s message to mean something quite so tangible. Or quite so small. He resists, very nobly, the temptation to open it, even when he makes it back to his rooms, and sets it down beside his bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does his very best not to signal anything in his looks or speech, when he next sees the king. His Majesty has told him, in that kindly way that grates the worst, that Costis’s strengths do not lie in subterfuge. The king will simply have to deduce for himself whether or not the errand has been successfully completed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two days later, when he wakes up, the package is gone.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>V.</p><p>
  <span>Hilarion’s daily headache starts especially early, that day. Before the king is even fully dressed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The brown coat, today, I think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ion manages to convey solely with his eyes and his left eyebrow that the brown coat is with the launderers, remember, because of the sincerely unmentionable stain they’d found on it the previous evening, despite the fact that His Majesty hasn’t worn it (at least, publicly) in almost a fortnight. He also makes it extremely clear that since </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was the one who had to tell the King that they were temporarily out of syruped pears the previous morning, he is not volunteering for this duty. He is, actually, actively un-volunteering, which isn’t really a word but definitely should be. There’s a lot of it going around, these days, in the chambers of His Majesty the King of Attolia. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps the grey coat, Your Majesty?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The </span>
  <em>
    <span>grey </span>
  </em>
  <span>coat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or the blue one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is wrong,” the king asked lightly, “with my brown coat, Hilarion?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Temporizing is fine, but Hilarion has drawn a firm line on lying directly to the king, and hasn’t crossed it recently. This doesn’t seem like the time to start, despite the way he can feel his headache crawling further up the back of his neck. “It’s being laundered, Your Majesty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see. How very unfortunate, that all of the laundresses in Attolia have come down with the grippe, and all at once.” The king taps his fingers, very lightly, on the edge of the bedpost next to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hilarion winces. His head throbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since otherwise, I cannot imagine that it would take the stout, noble washerwomen of Attolia--who, I have been assured, are of course more diligent in their work than any others, especially ones in mountainous and extremely unwashed countries I’m sure I needn’t name--quite so much time to wash a coat I have not worn for so long. Should I be devoting royal resources to this problem?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Your Majesty. We will--there was--” he swallows and sets his chin. “I apologize for the oversight, my King, but it was found soiled yesterday and needed to be cleaned. Can I recommend the grey coat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose you may, if you wish me to bore my ministers to death. Give me the green one, Ion, and stop looking at me like I am planning to have you boiled in oil.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time they make it to breakfast, the queen is already waiting--as, in fact, she usually is. Hilarion is relieved to be permitted to merely stand by the side of the room and wait through the usual morning business--a discussion of which audiences will be held in which chambers, and whether or not they need to see the ambassador of Ferria together or if simply His Majesty will be sufficient. It is not until the king is about to leave that he breaks the pattern, and instead of simply kissing his wife, removes a small package that Hilarion is quite certain was not in any of the pockets of the green coat earlier, and presents it to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My King?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have been very interested in the trade with Magyar, lately. They have quite popular mediocre wines, which are guzzled by the barrel in the lower city.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hilarion doesn’t think that Magyaran wines are so bad--they’re the ones that Philokrates imports, and so they’re what get served at all his parties. His father quite likes them--or at least, publicly drinks and praises them, since Philokrates has his fingers in quite a lot of the flax trade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do they.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And if I were interested in wine, I am sure I would find it very instructive. They also have these, of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The queen unwraps the little package. It’s a brooch, in goldwork set with onyx, in the shape of a bee. She holds it up, and her hands immediately go to the wings, pushing them aside to reveal that it opens into quite a clever little compartment, quite seamlessly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>An assassin’s tool--a poisoner’s tool. One of the famed assassin’s gems of the Magyar, that are never sold or gifted beyond their borders. How in all the gods’ names did even the Thief of Eddis manage to steal something across a border he’d never crossed?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For the added convenience, next time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hilarion, in several years at court and nearly a full one as His Majesty’s attendant, has never once heard his queen laugh. And he cannot even truly call it a laugh--except he also cannot imagine calling anything that Her Majesty the Queen of Attolia does a </span>
  <em>
    <span>giggle</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beheading would be a cure for headaches, to be sure, but not one he’s eager to pursue.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>+ One More, Some Years Later</p><p>
  <span>“Mother told me that I had to attend the diplomatic reception tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eugenides nods absently, mostly still absorbed by the report on Ferrian wines and whether he would need to raise tariffs to protect the new vineyards being put in on the slopes of the Hephestial Mountains. It seems that he will, which he doesn’t like, but--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother said I had to attend even though I already had plans to visit the new tavern in the lower city.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks up at his daughter, who stands in the doorway with a frown dark enough to scare off all of his attendants, it seems. “Then I suspect you will need to reschedule your plans in order to attend the diplomatic reception this evening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I wanted to go tonight. ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stands, and wanders closer to the doorway. His dear daughter is responsible for at least eight or nine of the papers still remaining on his desk--it seems that every evening there’s another complaint from one Baron or another minister. This notable’s rings mysteriously gone missing, that blowhard’s trousers come unbuttoned in the Petty Court, the undercook up in arms over a tray of missing marzipan. She and her brother jointly are to be blamed for another sheaf or two of headaches. It adds just a hint of wryness to his smile as he reminds her, “Ahh, but your mother has a way of insisting. She usually gets her way, in the end. Comes of ruling the entire country.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Thief of Attolia glares up at him, hands propped on skinny hips. “I,” she states calmly and clearly, “can do anything I want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eugenides smiles, reaching out to skip a hand lightly through her hair, as thick and straight as her mother’s. His eye lingers on the bee brooch pinned to the side of her tunic, the absence of which in Irene’s jewelry box is only going to further irritate his wife. “Of course you can.” He taps her on the nose, and his grin broadens at the look of disgust she fixes him with. “You’re a Thief.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy yuletide! I got quite carried away and reread most of the series, which was excellent good fun. Many thanks to [name redacted] for their knowledge of Ancient Greece and [name redacted] for many things, among them reminding me there isn't any jam in the Queen's Thief books :)<br/>Heads up in the comments that Nightalp hasn't read Return of the Thief yet, so avoid spoilers for that one please!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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